Interview Age of Decadence - Big in France

[Jason]

Tags: Age of Decadence; Iron Tower

The worldwide reach of <b><a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/" target="blank">Age of Decadence</a></b> has extended across the Atlantic to French publication <a href="http://www.ig-magazine.com/fr" target="blank">IG Magazine</a>. Readers less familiar with the language of Love can grab an English translation of the interview at <a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php?topic=783.msg24191#msg24191" target="blank">Iron Tower Forums</a>.
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<blockquote>RT combat is “combat simplified”. It fits perfectly into the “even a 10 year old should be able to beat the game easily” mentality championed by publishers. TB combat is a “chess party”. It’s about taking your time to consider different tactics and go over all available options. If done right, TB combat is about presenting the player with a combat puzzle and giving him a wide range of tools to try to come up with solutions that may work.
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Here is an example:
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I’ve decided to replay excellent Realms of Arkania: Star Trail. I made a party of different characters and went adventuring. A few minutes after I left the starting town a text message popped up informing me that five orcs are attacking a priestess who wouldn’t mind some help. Five orcs? Hah! They’ve gotta be kidding me. Must be a tutorial. I have six capable party members. We should be able to stop at least two orcish armies and maybe even invade a small country. I join the battle feeling bad about ganging up on poor orcs like that. Five minutes later my party is dead. Dead. Orcs 6, me 0. That’s turn-based combat in a nutshell. You either think and plan carefully or you are dead.
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AoD combat system offers a lot of different attacks and options: aimed, normal, fast, power, special attacks plus throwing nets to entangle your opponents, acid to burn through armor, rare neurostimulants, liquid fire, black powder bombs, etc. Fights are hard and are not designed to make sure that you win (in fact, they are often designed to put you back into your place), so you’d need the turn-based system to have a fighting chance.</blockquote>
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.gamebanshee.com/">Game Banshee</A>

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Five minutes later my party is dead. Dead. Orcs 6, me 0. That’s turn-based combat in a nutshell. You either think and plan carefully or you are dead.

I'm reminded of this...

I cant figure it out how to play this game. Its too difficult. It maybe a good game but the battle system is hard. Those who gave a 10, means u are professional in this game. But those who gave below 6 u should play neverwinter nights. It will be much easier for u.

Actual user comment on MetaCritic about ToEE.

 

[Volourn]

Once again, VD posts like a moron. Thankfully, despite his retardedness, AOD looks to be shaping up to be good.

 

[Shannow]

The only Realms of Arkania game I ever played is Shadows Over Riva. I walked outside town, got attacked, spend a half hour fighting one excruciatingly slow combat, got wiped out, and uninstalled the game.

Sure, chess is complex, but that’s sixteen pieces on sixteen. For a single-player RPG, the fun is in the story (on a high level) and the stat building and lewt finding (on a low level). The combat is a means to an end. So make it fast and lively, end it, and get on to the next fast, lively combat. I do put in fights with odd tactics, generally weird or boss encounters. It’s nice variety. But combat is still the means to an end.

So is this all a conspiracy to make me buy AoD? And who read whose interview and then copied?

 

[BethesdaLove]

So is this all a conspiracy to make me buy AoD?

No, Vince's hugs, his outgoing, adolescently outspoken personality, consensual opinion and a consistent presence create an emotional attachment and a bigger likelihood of BUY BUY BUY!!! ONLY TODAY! FOR 29.99!!!

 

[MetalCraze]

Fights are hard and are not designed to make sure that you win (in fact, they are often designed to put you back into your place)

Hope that doesn't mean that VD will go the traditional way of newbie PC devs/modders with their "hey we thought that dying from 2 hits is too easy so we decided to add several dozens of enemies attacking you at once".

 

[RK47]

AOD Combat claims to be very deep but the fact remains that you can only control one guy just like Fallout series. I wouldn't expect too much from a one-piece vs many chess game.

 

[The_Pope]

The posted quote doesn't make sense. The RoA example shows why challenge is good, and has nothing to do with the merits of turn based combat. Next up, it claims AoD is tactical because it has a system where you pick the attack which matches the targets weakness. Kind of like square peg goes in square hole.

Hearing about this games combat system makes me want to play a diplomat.

 

[Black]

Publishers are the problem, not a solution.

Huh. That may be true.
What about selling AoD via Steam then?

 

[MetalCraze]

What about selling AoD via Steam then?

No. Not the retarded Steam with its "you must be connected to the internet to play the single-player game that doesn't have any multiplayer and if you lost connection and want to play the game - sorry go fuck yourself"

 

[Black]

What about selling AoD via Steam then?

No. Not the retarded Steam with its "you must be connected to the internet to play the single-player game that doesn't have any multiplayer and if you lost connection and want to play the game - sorry go fuck yourself"

Offline mode?

 

[MetalCraze]

Which you can't enable unless you are uh oh connected to the internet.

 

[Black]

Which you can't enable unless you are uh oh connected to the internet.

Um, no, I just checked it while being disconnected.
Besides, what the hell are you smoking? What would be the purpose of OFFLINE mode if you still had to be ONLINE?
Use common sense.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

Which you can't enable unless you are uh oh connected to the internet.

Um, no, I just checked it while being disconnected.
Besides, what the hell are you smoking? What would be the purpose of OFFLINE mode if you still had to be ONLINE?
Use common sense.

Common sense? In case you missed, each Valve dollar is worth one European Euro. Tell them about common sense.

 

[thesheeep]

Yep. Playing offline with Steam is absolutely no problem at all.
And Valve also uses the $ = € logic...

I usually buy online games via Gamersgate using a US-Proxy.

 

[Black]

Common sense? In case you missed, each Valve dollar is worth one European Euro. Tell them about common sense.

I don't buy on Steam so I don't give a shit. All I'm interested in if services like Steam can't solve problems for indie devs with publishers.

 

[Claw]

TB combat is a “chess party”. It’s about taking your time to consider different tactics and go over all available options. If done right, TB combat is about presenting the player with a combat puzzle and giving him a wide range of tools to try to come up with solutions that may work.

But VD, combat is a means to an end. What end I'm not sure, but I understand you're supposed to get it over with quickly.
Combat is something to endure, not enjoy.

I’ve decided to replay excellent Realms of Arkania: Star Trail. I made a party of different characters and went adventuring. A few minutes after I left the starting town a text message popped up informing me that five orcs are attacking a priestess who wouldn’t mind some help. Five orcs? Hah! They’ve gotta be kidding me. Must be a tutorial. I have six capable party members. We should be able to stop at least two orcish armies and maybe even invade a small country. I join the battle feeling bad about ganging up on poor orcs like that. Five minutes later my party is dead. Dead. Orcs 6, me 0. That’s turn-based combat in a nutshell. You either think and plan carefully or you are dead.

So, you enjoy the excruciatingly slow combat? Tsk, tsk. You're deluding yourself. You want to play Battle Chess, not RPGs. :wink:

 

[MetalCraze]

Which you can't enable unless you are uh oh connected to the internet.

Um, no, I just checked it while being disconnected.

So tell me how did you get past login screen while being disconnected in Online mode in order to set Offline mode?

And also probably you can explain why steam must be running when I want to play any of the singleplayer games from it, easily eating 200+ MBs of RAM and CPU resources causing games to lag?

 

[Dionysus]

AOD Combat claims to be very deep but the fact remains that you can only control one guy just like Fallout series. I wouldn't expect too much from a one-piece vs many chess game.

I tend to agree. I like a good TBS, but it's difficult to justify single-character TB combat. I'd prefer RT or RTw/P for simple situations like that.

 

[Black]

Which you can't enable unless you are uh oh connected to the internet.

Um, no, I just checked it while being disconnected.

So tell me how did you get past login screen while being disconnected in Online mode in order to set Offline mode?

And also probably you can explain why steam must be running when I want to play any of the singleplayer games from it, easily eating 200+ MBs of RAM and CPU resources causing games to lag?

Steam Offline mode.
1. Step one- get disconnected.
2. Start Steam, or if you had it running- restart it
3. "Start in Offline mode".
That is all.
Also, Steam isn't really that resource eating. It was but that was quite some time ago. Now I can run games like TF2 and L4D at max settings, 1440x900 and still have some shit running in the background with no lag (~80 fps)

I tend to agree. I like a good TBS, but it's difficult to justify single-character TB combat. I'd prefer RT or RTw/P for simple situations like that.

And I'll take TB over RT or RTwP in RPGs, even when playing solo, thank you very much.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Fights are hard and are not designed to make sure that you win (in fact, they are often designed to put you back into your place)

Hope that doesn't mean that VD will go the traditional way of newbie PC devs/modders with their "hey we thought that dying from 2 hits is too easy so we decided to add several dozens of enemies attacking you at once".

No. You rarely fight more than 2-3 opponents at a time. Attacking 5+ opponents is a suicide mission.

AOD Combat claims to be very deep ...

It does? Where?

...but the fact remains that you can only control one guy just like Fallout series.

And?

The posted quote doesn't make sense. The RoA example shows why challenge is good, and has nothing to do with the merits of turn based combat.

Uh... you need time to think and consider your options to beat the challenge. In RT if you are facing 6 tough guys, your only tactic is to lure one away, kill, rinse and repeat.

Next up, it claims AoD is tactical because it has a system where you pick the attack which matches the targets weakness. Kind of like square peg goes in square hole.

That's some mad reading between the lines skillz.

First, it doesn't say anywhere that AoD is tactical because it has different attacks. Second, it doesn't say anywhere that you play by matching a certain attack with a certain weakness. That's simply not what our combat system is built on.

Hearing about this games combat system makes me want to play a diplomat.

*rolls eyes

I too hate turn-based combat systems that give you a decent number of options during your turn. Garbage, I say.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Which you can't enable unless you are uh oh connected to the internet.

Um, no, I just checked it while being disconnected.

How do you do that? Whenever I find Steam is online and I'm offline when I fire up a Steam game, Steam keeps trying to connect and never gets any further than that. So I have to go online, connect to Steam and THEN make Steam go offline. Then it helpfully reminds me everytime I try to play a Steam game that "I'm offline and did I want to go online"?

Besides, what the hell are you smoking? What would be the purpose of OFFLINE mode if you still had to be ONLINE?

I actually thought this was one of those well-known "this is why Steam sucks" things. As detailed in their "How to make Steam go offline" help file (IE: Step 1: Go Online).

 

[MetalCraze]

Steam Offline mode.
1. Step one- get disconnected.
2. Start Steam, or if you had it running- restart it
3. "Start in Offline mode".
That is all.

Steam greets me with the login screen every time I launch it in an online mode and tries to connect to the internets.
Checking "Save my password" doesn't help and the "do not store login info on my pc" is unchecked. So tell me the sikrit of your login magiks

I actually thought this was one of those well-known "this is why Steam sucks" things. As detailed in their "How to make Steam go offline" help file (IE: Step 1: Go Online).

1. Start Steam online
Oops

 

[DarkUnderlord]

There we go skyway: "It still takes Steam about 90 seconds to realize I have no internet connection".

Apparently we're not waiting the mandated 2 minutes. After that it supposedly pops up the "Start in offline?" mode option.

 

[Black]

What the hell is with you people?

That's what happens when I try to connect to Steam when I'm disconnected.

I can play all games that don't require connection to play, including the ones like Empire: Total War which has to be activated on Steam.

"It still takes Steam about 90 seconds to realize I have no internet connection".

Seems like an unique problem, because "my" Steam needs ~4 seconds to realize I don't have internet connection.